Archives

Monday, October 31, 2005

Dowdy BootyThose are some BIG damn feet.

SACRED TRUTHS.
Maureen Dowd is still baffled by the fact that life involves tradeoffs,
from which she, apparently, should be an exception:

Sylvia Ann Hewlett, an economist and
the author of "Creating a Life: Professional Women and the Quest for
Children," a book published in 2002, conducted a survey and found that
55 percent of 35-year-old career women were childless. And among
corporate executives who earn $100,000 or more, she said, 49 percent of
the women did not have children, compared with only 19 percent of the
men.

Hewlett quantified, yet again, that men have an unfair advantage.
"Nowadays," she said, "the rule of thumb seems to be that the more
successful the woman, the less likely it is she will find a husband or
bear a child. For men, the reverse is true."

A 2005 report by researchers at four British universities indicated
that a high I.Q. hampers a woman's chance to marry, while it is a plus
for men. The prospect for marriage increased by 35 percent for guys for
each 16-point increase in I.Q.; for women, there is a 40 percent drop
for each 16-point rise.

Since Maureen is always writing about Maureen,
it's clear that she's hankering for a husband and a child. Instead,
what does she get? Matt Drudge running a caption contest making fun
of her.

It's all so unfair. That's why her new book is called "Are Men
Necessary: When Sexes Collide." I suppose her preferred line of attack
is that men aren't necessary,
that the world would be better off if women -- especially smart women
-- were artificially inseminated like dairy cows and free to bring up
their smart female-only progeny in a one-sex society. That way, female
IQs could keep going up while the male population dwindled away to
nothing. But what does this mean in terms of one of Dowd's favorite
talking points?

Women moving up still strive to marry
up. Men moving up still tend to marry down. The two sexes' going in
opposite directions has led to an epidemic of professional women
missing out on husbands and kids.

In the dairy cow model, women will still be disappointed. There won't
be any smart, powerful men to pursue. There will be millions of female
geniuses, all desperately seeking some nonexistent male to show off to.
The frustration will be immense. And what happens when powerful, brainy
women get frustrated? You work out the answer for yourselves, but it's
a good bet the answer rhymes with schmarmageddon.

Rather than a total reengineering of society, the right way out of this
crisis might be for the smart, powerful men in Washington, DC, to get
together and draw straws. The one who draws the short straw will
arrange to be caught by Maureen Dowd, marry her, and spend the rest of
his life making her feel beautiful, sexy, wanted, and indispensably
brilliant. A tough assignment for somebody, to be sure, but it could
save civilization as we know it. Isn't that worth the sacrifice of
one heroic man? You decide.